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Fiscal Grinch: Can it stop Christmas from coming?

Lawmakers are rearranging their travel plans and crossing their fingers. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he’d been in Washington long enough to know plans could change at any time. He planned on spending the holiday with his daughter in New York, but “everything is refundable.”

Others weren’t thrilled that Congress was now finding itself in this position.

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“It’s simply just bad management. These issues have been around all year, and I was head of our state Senate for decades, and we never got ourselves into this position,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho). “I’m just astounded this can happen.”

Both parties used the “stay in Washington” threat to make their political points. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took to the floor on Wednesday to urge Republicans to vote immediately on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $250,000.

“Why are we being told [to] make a reservation Christmas Eve and one on the day after Christmas to come back? Is there not an appreciation for the Jewish holidays, Christmas holiday, Kwanzaa, all the days families come around, bonding rituals, important to the strength of our society, do we not care about that?” Pelosi said. “They want to have family dinners and they want to exchange gifts as is the tradition, but they really don’t know if they are going to be able to pay the bills in January that they — for the purchases in December.”

As the House debated a rule to allow for more time to vote on any fiscal cliff deal that might occur, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) said it is lawmakers’ duty to stay as long as is necessary.

“I would prefer not really to be here today talking about this resolution,” he said. “It must be Christmastime, and so we’re going to work all the way through. I’d like to be home with my constituents. I’d like to be home with the family. I’d like to be doing things, but the reality is that Congress will have to remain in session for the holiday season, because we’re the ones that said we would help solve the problems of this country.”

Even a Santa Claus impersonator got political on Wednesday when the group Catholics United sent over the man in red to lobby Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on extending the majority of the Bush tax cuts. A spokesman for Boehner said Santa Claus was unable to enter the speaker’s office.

At least one member was confident he’d be able to get home and that there wouldn’t be a need to cancel his flight.

“I have a plane ticket out of here on the 23rd, and I am certain that I will make it. We’re not going to be here,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “I think there will some short-term type thing that will get us through January and everybody will recognize that we can do that. I don’t think any agreement is going to be made before then.”

On Wednesday night's Charlie Rose program, the eminently rational Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute defined the current Republican Party--from the poisonous tribalism that Newt Gingrich introduced to Grover Norquist's toxic position on taxes to the Haley Barbour / Jeb Bush (apparently ineffectual) pragmatists. While he also tipped his hat to the fine line Marco Rubio is trying to walk on immigration, Ornstein did not mention the take-no-prisoners Jim DeMint tea-partiers, the zealously dogmatic Dick Cheney / Charles Krauthammer Neocons, or Ron and Rand Paul's holier-than-thou Libertarianism.

Even with the recent success of ALEC- and Koch Brothers-inspired state-by-state assaults on democratic values, this makes the Democratic Party look very appealing and clean as a whistle.

We're supposed to feel for the overpaid, over-vacationing ("recessing"), do-nothing members of Congress that concocted the very mess they are now in? That's pretty funny, isn't it? Everyone in the know knows this problem could be solved a variety of ways and quickly, but politicians want to seem heroic because they are willing to stay and sacrifice holiday travel plans. These guys are the only reason they will staying in town. Republicans have taken the pose of their new party mascot -- the ostrich with it's head buried in the sand.

These bums haven't done anything since they returned for the lame-duck sessions but preen before cameras and indulge in political theatrics. What have they done legislatively? Nada. Zilch. Zero. Have they passed the updated Violence Against Women Act? No. Have they passed the updated farm bill? No. Did the Senate pass the United Nations treaty to ban discrimination against people with disabilities? No, they couldn't even do that, thanks to Republicans. Republicans couldn't even pass a treaty that advances American values worldwide -- specifically, the values embodied in the admirable Americans With Disabilities Act that is the law of our land. No, there's no reason to feel sympathy for these politicians unless we deem them to be insane; then I guess symapathy and compassion are in order.

There are numerous middle class Americans who are working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. No tears here, especially considering if these politicians would do there job, they wouldn't be in this situation. So why did it take 18 months again?

I just finished reading an article on Yahoo Business discussing how going over the fiscal cliff for a few weeks won't make a big difference. From my perspective, I could give a rip if we go over the damn cliff; it's about the only way we can get spending under control. I've planned well ahead in many ways for this eventuality, so let's go. The problem we as Americans face is a Congress that is so dysfunctional that our demise as leader of the free world is inevitable, and this will lead to chaos. Until Congress is replaced with citizen servants who care about the nation, we are doomed. And that will never happen.